Friday, 19 February 2010

UK sleepwalks into European Military Union

On the 6th February at the Munich Security Conference, Germany's Foreign Minister, Guido Westerwelle, expressed his country's determination that Europe should have its own permanent, fully integrated army. "The long-term goal is the establishment of a European army under full European parliamentary control (sic). The EU must live up to its political role as a global player. It must be able to manage crises independently. It must be able to respond quickly, flexibly and to take a united stand".

Where Germany leads France of course follows. These two countries are already pressing ahead with their plans to set up a "Synchronised Armed Forces Europe" or SAFE. Under this scheme the national armies of the EU countries will become increasingly synchronised until they will eventually, some say "naturally", merge into a single European Army. Military "interoperability" (in eurospeak) will be the inevitable outcome of this sychronisation process: sychronisation in equipment = sychronisation in training = sychronisation of command.

The labour government's collusion with this Anschluss was witnessed yesterday when Quentin Davies, minister for Defence Equipment and Support, signed a Memorandum of Understanding with France enabling closer co-operation on the procurement of military equipment.

This synchronisation of British and French military equipment is an example of labour's policy announced in the government's recent green paper: "the UK will in future need to co-operate more closely with allies such as France to provide the full range of military capabilities". Defence secretary Ainsworth said in the green paper: "In Europe, the return of France to Nato's integrated military structures offers an opportunity for even greater cooperation with a key partner across a range of defence activity."

The insidious incremental subordination of Britain's Armed Forces to the diktats of the EU will inevitably mean that Britain will soon lose the capability to act unilaterally to defend her national interest and national security. But, I suppose, in Grosse Europa there is no such thing as "national" interest only Franco-German interest.